I came of age in the era of excellence in the Pentecostal church. Maybe we weren’t explicitly told we had to go out and change the world, but still, the implicit expectations were there – in the worship songs, the rhetoric, the subtle messages, the cult of christian celebrity. We sang about being history-makers, planet-shakers; …
Category: Faith & Doubt
Let the River Flow
I wrote this post over a year ago and never published it. It is still 100% true, but It’s time to break the dam, let the river flow where it may, let the water carve out space in the places that give way to it. I’m learning to give in to the softness and simplicity, …
For the Quiet Ones
Dear Friend, I see you cringing when the big-name preacher shouts about sin, but doesn’t show love. I feel your insides turning into nauseating twists, as if sheer volume and persistence can convince people that they should follow. I cry along with you, those hot tears, when we witness together the hateful spouting of those …
Broken, Happy People [on Hell & Holy Messes]
It’s a funny thing, not believing in Hell, or an afterlife at all, sometimes. It’s not something I think we can know for sure, this side of death, so I’m in between at the moment. In the midst of The Sorting. Plus, It’s not really something to bring up in polite conversation. Allude to a …
Mirror [a poem of maybes, for Easter]
Maybe the cross is a mirror and in it we see our thirst for blood, for revenge, our need for a scapegoat and our desire for someone to blame. Maybe we see ourselves when we hold up this instrument of torture and gore that some inexplicably see beauty in, maybe the beauty of it is …
In the Darkness [thoughts on PND and faith]
I didn’t choose the darkness; I don’t think it chose me either. I simply found myself in a gradual twilight, at the inevitable turning of the earth away from the day, toward the night. The sun slowly set behind me, the shadows lengthened, a dense fog descended in the chill, and I lost the trail …
Empty Shoes [or, when I can no longer carry everything]
The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken, into the western sea, and the moon rising behind you as you stood where ground turned to ocean: no way to your future now but the way your shadow could take walking before you across water, going where shadows go This is …
promise [or, when these are the only gifts i have to give]
When the books are folded closed on Christmas Eve, and we try to untangle ourselves from the muddle of competing narratives of a child born in the dirt and pain and hope, and of innocent assertions that maybe Santa lives in your tummy, too. And we leave hanging in the air like baubles, your wonderings …
found
Hi Friends! Today I am over at Karissa Knox Sorrell’s blog with a guest post, kicking off her “Where I found God” series. Go check it out, and subscribe to her updates so you can read the rest of the series. *** I didn’t find him where they said he’d be. I didn’t find him …
story
I’m just one small part in an unfolding story. I don’t know how it’s going to end (I’m not even sure how how it started). Right now I’m quite content spinning my little spiderwebs here in the corner, remaking my home day-by-day, in a location that seems appropriate. Regarding faith and doubt and God and …
